None of the three great palaces of the Kremlin are open to visitors--at
least not yet. The earliest of the three is the Terem Palace, which is
the oldest building in the Kremlin. The Palace served as the Imperial residence
until the removal of the capital to St. Petersburg in 1712. The Faceted
Palace, built by Ivan III, was used primarily for audiences and feasts,
a function revived by Soviet leaders. The last of the three palaces, the
Great Kremlin, was built in the early 19th-century as a Moscow residence
for Nicholas I. All three of the palaces possess extraordinary interior
decorations belied by their rather unremarkable exteriors.